


Can't Help Falling In Love

by orphan_account



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: 1800s, 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, Alternate Universe - Human, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/M, Immortality, M/M, Modern Era, POV Second Person, Past Character Death, Platonic Romance, Revolutionary War, Romance, Time Skips, but the ending isnt really happy tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 18:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6668689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for·ev·er</p><p>1. for all future time; for always.</p><p>A definition means nothing to you when it's words in a dictionary. A word holds no meaning when your sister speaks it to you in a bedtime story, or when your tutor recites it from the pages of a novel, or when your parents coo it in romantic ramblings, or when villagers mention it in passing. Words are combinations of symbols, and they only mean what people want them to, but those meanings were often underestimated in their intensity and extremity. No, you really never knew what forever was. </p><p>Not until forever was what you had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Help Falling In Love

_I argue thee_  
_That love is life_  
_And life hath immortality_

_Emily Dickinson_

 

* * *

  
You met him on April 12th, 1769.

He was a sailor, an American born and raised, and had grown up in New York. He inherited his father’s trading company, and spend ages sailing the ocean blue. You served as his second mate, and he regarded you like one of his best friends. He was as energetic as he was handsome, and his smile could blind. He was magnificent, the first person you’d met who he thought deserved his money, and seemed to be a dream. He wasn’t a person, the thought was almost tantalizing, he was little less than a god in your eyes. He was just… perfect.

Of course, you could never tell him things like that. It was taboo. It was wrong of you. Some might not stray from calling it disgusting. So when his British fiancée met you for the first time, you put on a welcoming face and shook her hand. She wasn’t a bad looking girl, not at all, but when she looked at him like he was lovelier than all the stars in the sky you couldn’t help but feel your heart twist. A knife to the chest would have been less painful than watching them kiss at the altar. A bullet to the head would have hurt less than seeing his newborn son in his arms as he cried tears of happiness. It would have hurt less being tortured than to see how he looked at her, to hear what he said about her, everything was about her and you hated it.

He was the first one.

He put his company in support of the Americans opposing the British, even as his wife valiantly stood by her home country’s side. Hearing him complain about her, even if just for her political views, was music to your ears. The riots in the big cities, finally the breaking point in Boston, all the other things that contributed to the declaration of war happened so quick. You couldn’t believe you’d known him for just six years; it felt like a lifetime.

His wife was beginning to rally for his cause, too, and her loyalistic ideas were becoming a thing of the past. She was his backbone throughout the stress of the period leading up to battle. He told you how terrified he was of dying. You told him you would make sure he got back in time to see his son.

You lied to him.

You both went to war. You didn’t stay by each other’s sides the entire war, per se, but you were both there, both fighting, both pushing for America’s independence. The war was won in 1783. He’d seen his wife and son as often as he could in those dips between conflict. He was a great man, the best man you’d ever met.

He died in Yorktown two years before the war ended.

He sent letters to his wife throughout the entire war. There was one he had never got to send, and seeing her face as you handed the yellowing envelope to her was enough to know that you should’ve done something to prevent this. His son was twelve years old and looked shockingly like the father he’d already lost. He’d blinked up at you, almost as tall as you although you were ten years his senior, and said, “My father was lucky to have you as a friend, sir.”

You didn’t go back to New York after that. You found a place in Massachusetts and stayed there instead. You couldn’t even try to deal with the family of the man you loved. You heard his son took on the company, leading it in a bright direction for the foreseeable future. You heard his wife was widowed for the rest of her days, too, before coming to an early demise as a cause of sickness.

You remembered seeing the newspapers with his son slapped on the front. A young man, handsome and intelligent like his father was, and married at the age of twenty-five, three kids by twenty-eight, and a very important figure by thirty-three. He wasn’t really like his father, in your eyes no one could ever come close to being like him, but he was still a good man.

You thought about visiting him, perhaps introducing yourself for the first time in twenty years, but you knew it wouldn’t be worth it. He was growing old, his kids were growing old, and he didn’t need to have you suddenly reappear in his life. You’d only chatted with him a couple of times when you and the first mate, the Scottish bloke, would go over to his home and share a few drinks. And even then he was small.

No, you wouldn’t go see him. It would mean nothing him. He was the son of the man you had loved- no, the man you _still_ love- nothing less, nothing more. You weren’t close to him, nor his godfather like the first mate. On top of that all, this man had crinkles in the corners of his eyes from smiling, kids to make memories with, a wife to grow old with, and a body that would eventually succumb to his years. It’d been two decades. This boy had grown and changed into a man. You, on the other hand…

You’d been twenty-two for the past seven decades.

* * *

 

It was 1847 when you met the mechanic.

He took you under his wing as an apprentice, seeing how you’d just settled into the country. You left America after the son of the love of your life died. Coming back to Europe was refreshing, but you decided to get off at the first stop in Britain rather than sail back to Italy. You managed to find an inn to stay in until you met the mechanic at a pub one night, and he blindly accepted you as a worker.

You found out quickly you were terrible with machines, and he laughed and guided your fingers- stomach pressed against your back, arms around your waist to move your hands the way they needed to be. His breath had been tingly on your neck, and he was very, very warm. You thought this an act of courtship, perhaps.

He continued to do good by you, buying your drink whenever you went out (much to your insistance of him not doing so), letting you stay in his flat above the workshop when it was a bit too dark for you to walk home alone, and eventually letting you move in with him. Your friendship was everything you’d been craving since the sailor in America. You cooked together, shopped together, and did nearly anything else by each other’s sides.

You remember the moment it all changed though, on a late night in the workshop. You don’t recall what you were trying to fix, but the Spaniard had his shirt off and that was more than enough to get flustered, though you hid it well enough. There was banter. Jokes, like always, and then you remembered kissing him. His lips had been chapped and rough, yours weren’t as harsh but also, you presumed, weren’t much better, and he hadn’t pushed you away. He held onto you. He kissed you back.

You didn’t tell anyone, God no, you were both Catholics and your church sure as hell didn’t allow this.

It was three years of bliss. Three years of being with the most perfect man in the entire goddamn world when you asked him about the future. You talked about moving to America, staying committed, maybe finding a way to open a shop and buy your own place. You were lovestruck, _dumbstruck_ , you weren’t thinking about how in the future he’d be aging without you. He told you that kind of talk was real out there, like your future together wasn’t something that mattered for him. You got onto him. He only laughed and said, “You’re plannin’ too much, darlin’. Let life take you as it does.”

And you flushed, still angry at his carelessness, and chastised him for calling you such a feminine nickname, which only prompted him to laugh again.

And then, on your fourth year of being with him, things happened. There was a women in your shop one night, and she had hair the color of cinnamon and eyes an even more alluring shade of it, and she wore clothes only a rich woman could afford.

She was impatient with your lover, and he was impatient right back, but she always came back to your workshop whenever she needed something done. A voice in your head had called you selfish for getting romantically involved with the mechanic when you knew you couldn’t have him like he’d have you. And the rich woman just kept coming back, and you weren’t stupid, and you saw how the two of them argued with a passionate twang that wasn’t anger. And you saw how the Spaniard’s eyes glinted when he spoke of her, and you saw how she looked at him. Centuries ago, when you’d been but an Italian village boy, your sister told you that if you’re in love with two people, you should always go after the second one because if you truly loved the first one you wouldn’t have fallen in love with the second one.

That hurt you, and maybe you were conditioning yourself to believe something that wasn’t true, but it helped ease your raging guilt as you packed up all the things you owned from the little home about the workshop and left.

You never heard from the mechanic again. You went on your original voyage back to Italy, like you’d planned years ago, and swore to yourself you’d never fall in love again.

* * *

 

You kept that promise for a long time. A very long time. Until one faithful day in late June of 1922.

You never liked Burlesque parlors. They always seemed trashy in your opinion, until you realized that just because you were doomed to live forever didn’t mean you could float around the world with no money. And that’s exactly what you had: nothing. The parlor served alcohol illegally, and was located in a sleazy part of New York City. You’d always go back to that place, you supposed. It was your home aside from Italy, since it was where your parents and Bianca and you immigrated to.

And where _his_ legacy reined.

You were mostly a bartender, aside from the times that the occasional man would call for your personal attention, and it wasn’t so bad. You were doing something illegal, but who cared? You got paid well enough to live in your own small apartment. The dancers were actually quite skilled women, and you could appreciate this more without the attraction to them. There was one particular night when you were being covered by a fellow bartender, and you could watch the women on stage dance in their flashy costumes.

“Enjoying the show?”

That was when you met him. Polished suit and slick tie, walking like he owned the place.

“Not nearly as much as standard man would be.”

He raised an eyebrow with a small chuckle. “I know what you mean.”

So he took you home. Your virginity was long since gone, ever since London all those years ago. He came back to the parlor a lot, too, and you liked to think it was because of you. After a while, he asked if you’d like to go out to dinner with him. You did, obviously, for he was a very nice man. You found out rather quickly the guy was loaded, and though you’d never been partial to having a “sugar daddy”, you found yourself beginning to want to be with him more and more.

And it wasn’t just his money, it was him. He was sharp-tongued but charming and got much too excited about his ancient Roman artifacts he kept up on display in his spiraling mansion of a home. He let you stroke his hair tiredly while he bragged about how he was legacy of some emperor. He took you to auctions where he bid on super overpriced Roman portraits and age-old relics. You didn’t know how he got the money and you didn’t ask, but your suspicions still remained. It was months after meeting him you found out you were flirting with death.

You supposed his being a gangster shouldn’t have come as too much of a shock, what with how serious he was about teaching you to fight anything and anyone (you’d fought in a war, so you were better than he had expected), and how he acted in public. You didn’t know how he got into it, since you saw his decorative badges from serving in the first world war you’d always thought him to be a “good guy”, but he was indeed a part of a large group of organized criminals. The danger of being with him was just so enticing.

The Burlesque parlor you had long since quit working at, spending your day instead at his lavish home and running the occasional errand. Some of which were illegal. Sometimes you felt guilty about not working, but you decided after nearly five centuries of doing exactly that, you deserved a break. Your lover tried to spend as much time as he could with you, and you loved every second you were with him. He really was a blessing.

You don’t remember much about how the relationship crumbled. All at once, you began fighting. Screaming and yelling at each other. He was always gone. He was always working, never with you, and why did he smell like perfume all the time? He was putting his life in danger, why wouldn’t you accept that he had his livelihood and he wasn’t going to change careers, why was he always drinking? The arguments could go on forever. He still went to that damn parlor, you knew, but the idea of cheating had never ever occurred to you. All you knew it that after barely a year of being together, your relationship ended bitterly. You up and left the asshole. You heard he started dating the pretty redhead girl you used to work with. A woman. You were the outlier. 

He got shot in the head by some broad from the other side of the city two months later.

You decided that, after some time, New York was too busy. You needed something a helluva lot more relaxed. You traveled south, just below the Bible Belt, and decided that you were just in and out of that part of the country for a good time.

* * *

 

You fell in love again. 1934.

With the city. With New Orleans. You’d traveled many places through the area, but New Orleans was by far your favorite. It reminded you of France, in a quirky kind of way. What with thousands of years ahead of you, you’d taken it upon yourself to learn a few languages. English, Spanish, and French were first, the languages of the world, then you’d tried to busy yourself with Russian. Japanese. German. Vietnamese. Latin.

You didn’t like speaking Latin, though, because it reminded you of the man who’d taught it to you.

The day after Mardi Gras, when the streets were still littered with necklaces and festive decor among the other trash, you met her. She was a black girl, and she was insanely beautiful. If you were a different man in a different lifetime you could have appreciated that more. You didn’t know why she started talking to you, but she did, and you fell into casual conversation with her.

She was a fortune teller, apparently, a cheap scam-artist one. But she told you that she wanted to be an artist. One that drew and sold her artwork. She couldn’t, though, art wouldn’t earn her nearly enough money as fooling the upper class folks into thinking she knew what would happen to them. She offered to read your fortune, free of charge, and you let her.

She furrowed her brow and said she couldn’t make anything out. That it was fuzzy.

You just laughed and teased her for not being a very good fortune teller, and she lightly shoved you and giggled along. The prediction, or lack thereof, made you more antsy than you had wanted to admit. What did your future hold, besides everything and nothing at the same time?

She immediately pulled you from your inn and forced you into living with her. She was like a mother, in a sense, and you hadn’t had one of those in centuries. You accepted her coddling and let her take care of you. She never asked about your past, thankfully. She seemed to know where to stop. She let you explain things. Not the immortality, of course not, but other things.

Coming out to her was surprisingly easy. She didn’t care, didn’t treat you any different- you truly believed this woman was a gift sent from the heavens. When she met the Chinese merchant, she completely fell for him. She loved him. Seeing them happy made your heart swell. He was a nice man, too, and he’d been immensely surprised when you greeted him in Chinese and managed to hold a conversation with him in the language. She, of course, ordered you to teach her the language. And you couldn’t deny her, it would be like denying your mother.

You adored the fact that she could look at someone and know that she had just the right amount of time with them. All the time in the world was nothing without someone to spend it with. You stayed with her a long while, even after she married her merchant and you bought a place across the block. She was always with you. One day, as you strode along the walk with her, she asked you, “Lord, how do you look so young all the time? Wish I was like you.”

You forced a smile and bullshitted an excuse that seemed to please her. You couldn’t tell her not to think like that. No, that would raise suspicion. No one truly understood the loneliness of eternal youth until they had it. How you longed for you skin to wrinkle, to get heat bumps and facial hair, to change somehow. You envied her ability to grow.

When she gave birth to her son, her husband holding the child like he was the most precious thing in the world and reminding you far too much of another dark-haired rich man from back in the day, your mind was made. You were the child’s godfather. You owed your responsibility to the friend- no, to the _sister_ you had made in Louisiana, but you weren’t strong enough.

You wanted to run. You _were_ going to run, but one look at those smiling golden eyes and you couldn’t.

You suppose it would have been better if you did, though, because their ship was lost at sea on their voyage to visit her husband’s home country when their son was four.

No bodies were recovered.

* * *

 

You barely had to wait ten more years for even more pain.

1967.

You’d always liked blue eyes, always liked them.

But these blue eyes weren’t like the sailor’s, which had been a deep sea color, almost a green. They weren’t like the gangster’s either, which had been a dulled shade of blue more akin to a gray. No, these eyes were the hue of the sky and completely bare of any clouds.

The guy wore a varsity jacket and grinned like an idiot all the time. He always smoked and always had a cigarette hanging from his mouth. His laugh was the most wonderful sound in the entire world. He was an ex-Air Force officer and his physique showed it.

You met him at a pop stop.

He was quirky. He only drank Pepsi-Cola and had something against Coca-Cola. You worked at a small shop to earn a bit of pay to provide for yourself. You were saving up to hopefully go to Europe again. He could tell when someone gave him the wrong pop, too, it was almost funny how fast he reacted. That was how you met. You didn’t serve Pepsi-Cola at your little store, and he started coming in every day asking for it. Every day, you’d tell him that you didn’t have it, but you had Coca-Cola. He’d always take it, but he’d _always_ ask for the other soft drink first. Eventually, you got tired of telling him you didn’t have it.

So you bought some, on your own time, with your own money.

When he asked again the following Friday, you handed him a bottle of Pepsi-Cola and watched the smirk slip off his handsome face. He laughed, took the drink, shook his head, and said, “Well I’ll be damned. I guess buggin’ someone’ll really get you what you want.”

You continued to do it, too. After that incident, he’d come in almost regularly and get Pepsi that you’d bought on your own time. You started talking. He was so easy to talk to.

Eventually he started forming a deeper friendship with you. He asked you if you wanted to hang out with him and his friends, if you wanted to go grab drinks, if you wanted to go see a movie screening.

One night, you remember clearly, you’d had a little too much. You both did. You went back to his condo, and he let you have his bed. But you didn’t take it, and instead snuggled up against him on his couch. And you kissed.

Kissed is an understatement, you suppose. You had a drunken makeout session. Clothes weren’t coming off, but you pressed yourself against him and kissed him for all you were worth. You fell asleep there, cuddled right against his chest. You woke up first, and after a moment of calmness, completely panicked. You started up, made sure he was still asleep, and then resettled yourself in his bed.

You never brought it up and he didn’t remember.

At least you don’t think he did.

You didn’t know if he was trying to be romantic or not, but you never did find out, because he started dating a pretty little waitress before you could ever discover the truth. His girlfriend was a sweet girl, she really was, and you liked her. Jealousy be damned, you weren’t about to repeat what relationship you had with the sailor’s wife.

She was a great girl. They bounced off each other really well.

It was around 1969 when he was drafted.

The Vietnam War took him away from you and his presumable soon-to-be wife. You didn’t get drafted. They didn’t let homosexuals into the army. You didn’t know who tipped them in on that tidbit of information, you didn’t even know how someone would know that information, but you had a feeling that the Air Force officer did. He must’ve remembered, after all. He was protecting you. You watched him leave with teary eyes, hand in hand with his girlfriend. You spent a lot of time with her in those months, growing very close to her. The two of you were very close friends. You came out to her, too, and she laughed when you did.

To your utter embarrassment, she laid a hand atop yours and said, “I know, silly, I see how you look at my magazines,” then she winked and whispered, “and my boyfriend.”

You fell into a easy friendship with her, something simple and wonderful and so pure. You missed him, yes, but you knew she did too.

He didn’t come back.

You waited with her. God, did you wait. You waited and waited and _waited_ until you couldn’t wait no more. You held onto his girlfriend on the nights that the smiles slipped off her face and she sobbed into shirt about how much she missed him. You waited as you watched his girlfriend try to pull herself together, put herself back out on the market, and meet another man. You didn’t think she’d ever meet a man quite like him, though.

You remembered one night above the rest, where she’d handed you a to-go cup of hot chocolate and a bag of leftovers after she’d returned from work and slumped next to you on the couch. She rubbed her temples, groaning quietly. “I love you, y’know.”

And you’d looked over at her in the middle of stuffing your face with a cheese and tomato only burger and took a slow bite, silently urging her to continue.

“And I…” she broke off with a sigh, almost as if she were about to start crying, “I don’t want you to leave me.”

You swallowed and wiped your mouth with your sleeve. “I’m not,” you assured her, voice low, “I wouldn’t leave you.”

“You should,” she said, “Find your own way.”

You only shook your head, better judgement aside, “What’s the point?

And then she looked up at you, eyes boring into your own. “Sometimes I wish you swung my way. God, it’s just... “ she shook her head, a humorless laugh bubbling from her lips, “you’re the closest to him I’m ever going to get. And it’s selfish for me to want him- want _you_ \- like I do.”

And you blinked a few times in rapid succession. “I’m sorry.”

“ _Stop apologizing, dammit_!” she exclaimed suddenly, banging her fist down on the side table, “Stop apologizing! You didn’t do anything! It’s all my fault for feeling this way, okay? For letting him…. For not… I…”

Then she broke off in quiet sobs, shaking as she cried. You set your food aside and pulled her close, letting her get it all out.

“It’s okay,” you comforted her, “It’s not your fault. Shh…”

You never let yourself cry around her. That would be unbelievably unfair.

After his death, you spent six years with her. She didn’t date a single man in that entire time. Oh, sure, men wanted her. Who wouldn’t want her? She was gorgeous. She busied herself with community projects, helping others and trying to make good of her life. She was heartbroken, but she wasn’t broken, and she wasn’t going to give up. That’s what she said to you.

But you knew you couldn’t stick around forever.

You left her in good hands. To a woman who had served in the Vietnam War alongside her boyfriend. She had dark hair and dark eyes, and in all honestly, was the polar opposite of him, but she took in your best friend of nearly a decade with ease.

She hugged you and forced you to stay in touch with her. You twined your fingers together behind your back and promised.

* * *

Years came and went. Wars were fought and people were lost. It was a buzz. You tried to keep yourself from even daring to speak to another person, lest it be another tragedy.

You would remember the date for all of your days that you finally fell in love for the last time. You were centuries old but looked twenty-two when you found him.

Your heartbreak came wrapped in a tall, blond, blue-eyed package.

(Like two others before him.)

He was a medical student, and you were a barista, and he always bought coffee at your shop every day without fail. The same thing every time, black with cream and two sugars. He asked for your number one crisp autumn morning, and you’d given it to him. You weren’t thinking. You hadn’t had someone to go on a date with in so many years…

He took you to a stupid Italian restaurant, and the food wasn’t cringe worthy, so you did thank him. There was a second date. A third. A fourth.

Months were days, weeks were hours, hours just mere minutes. Everything with him made you feel like you could take flight. Like you had something with this man, finally. Even though some nights as you lie in his bed, his stomach pressed up against your back, and thought about your future (but, unlike with the mechanic, he participated in these brainstorms with zero reluctance), you were happy.

It was early June and you let him pull you across the boardwalk, the setting sun your canvas backdrop. You shared a kiss overlooking the ocean (like you’d always fantasized about doing with the sailor) and let him carry you around on his back. He told you about his plans for your future while you ate ice cream cones and watched the sun sink and the sky turn dark.

“I love you.”

It’d been ten months and neither of you had said it.

But now he had.

“I love you too.”

This boy was going to break your heart.

And perhaps you had eternity in front of you, eternity to bear alone, but you had _him_ for the time being.

He graduated. You were at his ceremony, hugging and kissing him in his robes, and he pumped a fist in the air with a mad man’s grin. You two bought an apartment together, and danced in the empty living room to old Elvis songs while sipping glasses of wine (like you had with the soldier’s girlfriend when you two lived together), which were kept in the only box you had unpacked.

And you were going to let him break your heart. What did it matter? You got to be happy. Carelessly happy. And that’s what he wanted, right?

“Hey, do you ever think about the future?”

Blond hair was soft to the touch as fingers twirled through it. “I do.”

“What do you think ours is gonna be like?”

“I’m not a psychic, you know.”

Laughter. “I know, you dork, but I was just wondering what you thought.”

“Well, I think that we’ll live very happy together.”

“Forever?”

“Of course.”

Blankets shuffled. It fell quiet. The television blared something about that musical set during the Revolutionary War. There was a breath of mystification. “I wonder what it’d be like to live through that, don’t you?”

A stretch of silence. Centuries of memories flashed before the eyes of a physically twenty-two year old man, a man who was all too old for his appearances. All the heartbreak, all the death, all the tragedy. “No. Not really. I like our time much better.”

More laughter. “Yeah, alright. You do you, Nico.”

* * *

 

You met him in 2010.

That’s the year you wrote on the back of all your polaroid pictures. That’s the year he typed in the top right corner of his essays. That was the year you dated Christmas cards with. That was the year that you finally discovered, for the last time, what you couldn’t seem to stick around for when it was found in sailors or mechanics or gangsters or fortune tellers or merchants or waitresses or soldiers.

And it absolutely destroyed you.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the read, m8.  
> Writing semi-angtsy shit is new to me, so...  
> Also, Nico and Octavian are actually surprisingly cute together imo.  
> In order, Nico falls in love with: Percy, Leo, Octavian, Hazel, Jason (and Piper), and Will.  
> Check out my tumblr [here](http://luciferslittlekitten.tumblr.com/)  
> And, if you're up for it, check out [my new and hella sweet tumblr blog](http://mspaints-of-olympus.tumblr.com/) where you can request bad PJO/HOO MS Paint drawings, and me and my friends will draw them for you!


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